Tokyo Joe

A powerful, evocative novel of international betrayal, Tokyo Joe tells a story of Major Julian Bonner, a retired US soldier, confidante of General MacArthur, zen master, and yakuza boss, who is deported after forty-two years in Japan.

The Japanese say he fixed a baseball game. Julian Bonner says the Japanese wanted to silence him, and he knows why. As a young officer in World War II, Julian ... More

A powerful, evocative novel of international betrayal, Tokyo Joe tells a story of Major Julian Bonner, a retired US soldier, confidante of General MacArthur, zen master, and yakuza boss, who is deported after forty-two years in Japan.

The Japanese say he fixed a baseball game. Julian Bonner says the Japanese wanted to silence him, and he knows why. As a young officer in World War II, Julian Bonner has first hand knowledge about the secret activities of the 731-Corps—the hidden story of medical experiments carried out on Allied prisoners of war and Chinese civilians.

Praise

“The best book on the 731-Corps I’ve read.”—Bernard Trink, Bangkok Post

“Moore has constructed what is becoming increasingly rare: a novel that combines meaningful ideas with deep emotion, a novel in which social, political and personal themes all intermingle . . . and it can only be hoped that the novel will achieve the international recognition it deserves.”—The Daily Yomiuri

“Moore is also a playwright and this shines through in his fiercely dramatic prose reminiscent of Samuel Beckett’s style.”—The Nation

“Insight into the underbellies of Japan and the USA… incredibly intriguing…a book to savour, like a good port after dinner. Most enjoyable.”—Chiang Mai Mail

Canadian Christopher G. Moore is the creator of the award-winning Vincent Calvino Private Eye series and the author of the Land of Smiles Trilogy.

In his former life, he studied at Oxford University and taught law at the University of British Columbia. He wrote radio plays for the CBC and NHK before his first novel was published in New York in 1985, when he promptly left histenured academic job for an uncertain writing career, leaving his colleagues thinking he was not quite right in the head.

His journey from Canada to Thailand, his adopted home, included some time in Japan in the early 1980s and four years in New York in the 1980s.

In 1988, he came to Thailand to harvest materials to write a book. The visit was meant to be temporary. Twenty-six years on and 25 novels, three anthologies, and six non-fiction titles. There are fifteen novels in the Vincent Calvino series. He lives Bangkok.

His novels have so far been translated into Chinese, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, Thai, Russian and Turkish. He is published by Heaven Lake Press in Thailand. Four of the Vincent Calvino titles: Spirit House, Asia Hand, The Risk of Infidelity Index, and Paying Back Jack were published by Grove/Atlantic in the United States, and Atlantic Books in the United Kingdom.